About Us

Seymour is part of the Frontline Group (a joint venture between Bauer, Immediate Media Company and Haymarket Publications).

We have a 20% share of the total magazine market and the Frontline Group, including Seymour, has 59% share. This gives us the stability and clout to drive your magazine sales, in an increasingly volatile market place. More importantly, we have a 49% share of the 3rd party magazine market meaning that we are the preferred choice of distributor for independent magazine publishers.

As well as this, Seymour is the largest distributor of UK magazines internationally, exporting magazines to over 90 countries; we are additionally the largest importer of foreign magazine titles into the UK.

So, whether it be in the UK or overseas, we can help you develop your circulation strategies, to achieve your sales goals and maximise every opportunity for each of your titles. Our experience in magazine distribution, our market leading systems and market intelligence will provide you with the competitive advantage to succeed in today’s markets. We pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to an ever changing market and our bespoke solutions for clients – it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ mentality and we like it that way.

CLICK TO SEE WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT

Retail Representation

Retail Representation

Our team is focused and driven to be the best at retail, working closely with our expansive range of clients to implement profitable business plans and initiatives utilising our trusted retail relationships. The key to this success is founded upon the time dedicated to ensuring that the team is educated in our client’s portfolio of products and objectives, through a comprehensive framework of internal and external contact points, in order to help develop the action plans to deliver success at retail.

In addition to a National Accounts team uniquely dedicated to our third party clients, we also have a London travel point sales manager and a team of merchandisers who visit key independents on a regular basis.

Digital

Digital

The Seymour digital service was launched in 2014, the aim from the outset was to offer our clients an additional sales channel by building a network of digital sales platforms. The digital market has proven a challenging (and sometimes expensive) one to access for magazine publishers and by delivering this service Seymour provides our clients uncomplicated and inexpensive access to the dynamic, and ever-changing, digital environment.

Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

At Seymour we work closely with publishers and local distributors overseas to develop & execute the best marketing strategy for our titles both domestically and overseas. This could be maximising exposure in key markets to drive advertising, working out how to get the best return on a small promotional budget or how to fine-tune your print volumes for maximum profit.

Control of Copy Placement

Control of Copy Placement

The Commercial Copy planners utilise industry leading commercial models to ensure that supply levels are optimised in line with publisher strategies, which could be to drive profitability or revenue.

Using our store level allocation tool (TITAN), which was developed in house, we are then able to target supplies down to store level to maximise performance and ensure that publisher and retailer needs are balanced. The allocations we create are sent to wholesale and reviewed under an “expert to expert” process that ensures the highest levels of compliance and data accuracy.

Performance Analysis

Performance Analysis

UK

At Seymour we believe we offer the best of both worlds when it comes to performance analysis and reporting – we offer a solid foundation of established reports but also offer a truly dynamic reporting solution where we are able to work with our partners and offer solutions fit for their own unique requirements. We understand that different partners have different needs and believe that the “one size fits all” approach simply does not work for some – as such, where there is a need, we will always offer bespoke solution that dovetails onto our established and well respected standard reporting suite.

EXPORT

We have a wealth of information for you at our fingertips. We provide reports tailored to our publisher’s needs, whether that means a topline view of global sales, or a store-level analysis of, say, a promotion in Italy. We recognise that profitability is often a top objective so our reports are designed to incorporate production costs and remits to give a true picture of your export business. Also available are real-time online store finders for certain markets including USA and Canada, so your overseas readers can always locate their nearest copy.

Supply Chain

Supply Chain

The Seymour Supply Chain Team brings with it a vast amount of knowledge and experience across Print, Magazine Carriage and Wholesale, enabling us to work together with our Supply Chain Partners to guarantee an industry leading service to our Publishers.

We constantly strive to develop and deliver a unique service offering that guarantees service excellence, and take a ‘Blue Sky’ approach to innovation, working closely with our Publishers to deliver projects that drive down cost, improve efficiency, and maximize sales.

The Magazine industry requires an ever evolving Supply Chain and we pride ourselves on leading the competition and providing a sustainable and efficient solution for the future.

Account Management

Account Management

UK

At Seymour we work collaboratively with all of our Publishers in order to understand their business needs and objectives. This is successfully achieved by:

Prioritising Publisher’s business objectives through regular review both at retail level and total business

Expertise in building a profitable, long term business plan with trading partners

Seymour has the largest Export Team in the business with a total combined industry experience of over 100 years. Publishers benefit from our dedicated operations and finance people working solely on International so that your Account Manager can focus on sales analysis and development. Our international sales team come from a range of backgrounds including publishing/editorial, marketing, wholesale and circulation and have industry experience from markets around the world such as Australia, New Zealand and USA and can communicate in 6 different languages!

Consumer Insight

Consumer Insight

Insight into consumer behavior driven by analysis of shopper’s buying habits has become an integral part of the culture at Seymour. This has allowed us to develop a better understanding of customer behavior at retail and helped Seymour further establish our range partnership credentials with key retail groups and helped us to recommend and develop unique promotions. From the research we have conducted, there are a number of key areas for Seymour to focus our attentions on. If less people are visiting the Newsstand what are we doing to PUSH people into the category? The Newsstand is incredibly busy and noisy, so what are we doing to ensure our products STANDOUT? Impulse purchase plays such an important role in our sector, so what are we doing at the fixture to EXCITE consumers and if they are excited, what opportunity do we have to UPGRADE them to purchase best in class, premium priced event based issues, bumper packs and Bookazines. Then once readers have our products in their hands, what can we do, to encourage them to buy the next issue, or another magazine from your portfolio, by driving increased REPEAT purchase.

Work With Us

There are countless reasons to work at Seymour and fortunately for you, we’re always on the lookout for new talent.

So what’s it like to work here? Good question. We were curious too, so we asked. Words like ‘friendly’, ‘passionate’, ‘fun’ and ‘professional’ cropped up time and time again.

With a clear strategy for achieving our goals we always make time to celebrate our successes. We pride ourselves on our staff, putting them at the centre of everything with an abundance of training and development opportunities; all of which is reflected in our Investors in People award.

There are plenty of fundraising activities taking place for our employee nominated charities, including the NewstrAid Benevolent Fund. We also have volunteer days so that you can take time away from the office to support a charity close to your heart.

There are loads of other great benefits like our pension scheme, life assurance and the fact that we are located right in the heart of the City of London. Sound like it’s for you? Here are our latest vacancies:

If we haven’t got a role listed for you, send your CV to the following address, stating the type of position you are interested in together with your salary expectations and you never know: recruitment@seymour.co.uk

Contact

If you would like to contact Seymour to discuss how we can grow and develop the sales of your magazines or collectables,
please feel free to call or email us - we look forward to hearing from you.